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Twitter sued by the man behind NY Post’s infamous Hunter Biden story

A couple weeks before the US presidential election, the New York Post—a right wing tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch—published a story about Hunter Biden, the son of then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The thrust of the article was that Hunter essentially bribed foreign officials with access to his father when the latter was Barack Obama’s vice president.

How the story developed was odd to say the least: someone went to a computer repair shop—sort of like a health analytics company for computers—and dropped off a water-damaged laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter. The owner of the shop proceeded to look at the contents of the laptop’s hard drive, discovering a mass of incriminating files. Then, as any rational, well-meaning individual would do, he decided it was a good idea to share them with Rudy Guliani’s lawyer. Then he turned the hard drive over to the FBI.

Guliani and his army of Trump-worshipping orcs shopped the hard drive story around to various media outlets. The Post, presumably, was the only one to accept it. The article was published, and the Trump campaign thought it had its October surprise. But within a few hours the article had been censored by Twitter, which later justified the clearly-political move by citing its “hacked materials” policy. It even disabled the NY Post’s Twitter account.

A couple days later Twitter restored the account as well as the censored links, but of course the damage was done; the controversy surrounding the story had become far bigger than the story itself. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to the hoopla by saying he didn’t want “Twitter to be a distributor for hacked materials,” but conceded that it had been a “mistake” to simply censor an article without providing any context.

Anyway, the owner of the computer repair shop, John Paul Mac Isaac, is now suing Twitter for defamation. His lawyers claim that by slapping the “hacked materials” label on the Post’s story, Twitter implied that he is a hacker. Isaac is seeking $500 million in punitive damages, an unspecified amount in compensatory damages, and a “public retraction of all false statements.”

“Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not [constitute] hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer,” the lawsuit says, adding that Isaac “is now widely considered a hacker” and was forced to close his repair business due to threats and negative customer reviews.

This reminds me of that time when the previously-bald-headed Elon Musk was sued for defamation after referring to a cave diver as a “pedo guy” on Twitter. He won the case by claiming his tweet was satirical. Poor judgment on the part of that judge.

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YouTube profits from animal torture: report

A new investigation by animal welfare group Lady Freethinker determined that YouTube knowingly profits from depictions of extreme animal abuse. The investigation found about 2,000 videos “glorifying animal cruelty”; combined, they have more than 1 billion views. Using publicly available data, the group estimated that the abusive videos may have resulted in as much as $12 million in ad revenue for YouTube, plus as much as $15 million in revenue for the creeps who uploaded them.

The animal abuse freely available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube—owned by Google—includes but is not limited to: animal fighting (dogs, roosters, snakes, etc.), abusive captivity, eating animals alive, staged “rescue” videos, and hunting animals with other animals.

There are reportedly at least 146 YouTube channels devoted to celebrating animal abuse, with more than 30 million subscribers. Disturbing to say the least, especially when you consider that most of them would have no trouble passing a crime check like police clearance WA.

“This content is both incredibly cruel and dangerous for people,” Lady Freethinker wrote on its website. “Many of the animals exploited in these videos are potential hosts for zoonotic diseases — like rabies, tuberculosis, Ebola, measles, and more — that can spread to humans.

“LFT is calling on YouTube to show that it doesn’t prioritize profits over the humane treatment of animals. Sign our petition urging the company to take down these videos and adopt a strong policy to detect and remove all content promoting animal cruelty in the future.”

Reached for comment by the Guardian newspaper, YouTube had this to say for itself: “YouTube’s community guidelines prohibit any violent or gory content intended to shock or disgust viewers, including the unnecessary infliction of harm on animals. We routinely remove videos and comments flagged by our community that violate those policies, and in many cases we terminate the accounts of users who violate our guidelines.”

But Lady Freethinker reports that, between April and July of this year, YouTube only removed 185 of the approximately 2,000 videos flagged by the charity.

As for those “community guidelines” that clearly aren’t enforced, they supposedly prohibit dogfighting, cockfighting, videos showing “unnecessary suffering,” bullfighting, and hunting “using illegal practices.” All of which can be found on YouTube right now.

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Companies Social Media TikTok Uncategorized

Reddit buys out TikTok rival Dubsmash

Reddit announced recently that it had bought out a video sharing company called Dubsmash, further expanding the message board’s digital footprint. Dubsmash, a competitor of obnoxious prepubescent app TikTok, is going to hold onto its platform and brand while Reddit helps “bring our teams together to combine the unique creator experience of Dubsmash with the community growth engine of Reddit.” Reddit has not disclosed the financial terms of the takeover.

Dubsmash (a pretty stupid-sounding name, wouldn’t you say so?) functions much like TikTok does, giving users the ability to create and share short videos that are supposed to be really funny and clever but are actually just puerile and annoying. CNN, which doesn’t appear to have many articles about child care in Hornsby, reports that Dubsmash is known for its “diverse audiences”: one quarter of black teens in the US are on the app, and 70 percent of users are women. By “women” I assume CNN means “girls.” At least I hope that’s the case. If 70 percent of Dubsmash users are grown women, Western culture is in serious trouble.

A Reddit blog post says that about 30 percent of Dubsmash users log in each day to create content, which doesn’t seem overly-impressive. It also says that “Dubsmash’s mission is to elevate under-represented creators.” I’m not really sure what constitutes an “under-represented creator,” but there you have it.

“Dubsmash will bring two key strengths to Reddit,” Reddit explains. “First, Dubsmash’s mission is unique among social platforms, and is aligned with Reddit’s own mission of bringing community and belonging to everyone in the world. Just as Reddit is a place for content you won’t see anywhere else on the Internet, Dubsmash provides a welcoming platform for creators and users who are under-represented in social media.”

Commenting on the takeover, Dubsmash leader Suchit Dash delivered the following bromides:

“In our years of building Dubsmash, we’ve learned how video can spark creativity, unlock interactions, and deepen connections within communities. We want to continue our journey to bring best in class video products to our users, and now Reddit users. We believe in the idea of connecting creators around interests and topics, something Reddit has pioneered, in our growing Dubsmash community.”

Prior to being taken over by Reddit, Dubsmash reportedly considered letting Facebook or Snap do the honors.

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New York Times admits its ‘Caliphate’ podcast was a full-blown hoax

When the New York Times reports on foreign affairs, it’s at best tendentious. Sometimes it’s just flat-out false. Fake news, as the MAGA people say. Most of the time the “paper of record” never bothers to correct the record. But occasionally it does. Today is one of those rare occasions, with the Times admitting that its award-winning “Caliphate” podcast from 2018 was pure fiction.

Hosted by “journalist” Rukmini Callimachi, the podcast revolved around interviews with a Canadian man named Shehroze Chaudhry. Calling himself Abu Huzayfah, Chaudhry claimed to have been an ISIS fighter in Syria and described in graphic detail the atrocities he supposedly participated in. Callimachi played the role of credulous listener, taking for granted that everything Chaudhry told her was true.

As it happens, everything he told her was made up. This became clear back in September, when Chaudhry was arrested in Canada for perpetuating a “terrorist hoax.” As news of Chaudhry’s arrest made the rounds and people began asking questions, the Times defended its reporting using a rather curious argument, namely, that they never claimed their journalism was accurate.

“The uncertainty about Abu Huzayfah’s story is central to every episode of ‘Caliphate’ that featured him,” the paper said.

Ah, the classic “unreliable narrator” device. Common to fiction, but traditionally frowned-upon in journalism, to put it mildly. Then again, the Times has made it a sort of specialty in recent years, quoting all kinds of anonymous intelligence officials to persuade the American public that Russia, Iran and Venezuela are behind every iniquitous act under the sun.

Anyway, the Times evidently decided that “Caliphate” was a little to fraudulent for comfort. So the paper performed a review of the podcast and concluded that it “did not meet the standards for Times journalism.” That’s debatable, but OK.

“The Times found that ‘Caliphate’ gave too much credence to the false or exaggerated accounts of one of its main subjects, Shehroze Chaudhry, a resident of Canada who claimed to have taken part in Islamic State executions.”

How embarrassing. I didn’t study journalism in school, but if I had, I imagine The Importance of Vetting Primary Sources would have been among the first lessons taught.

As for Rukmini Callimachi, the terrorist conman’s willing dupe (chatbots in Australia would have done a better job running the podcast), the Times says she’s going to be allowed to keep her job. “She’s going to take on a new beat, and she and I are discussing possibilities,” said executive editor Dean Baquet. “I think it’s hard to continue covering terrorism after what happened with this story. But I think she’s a fine reporter.”

That someone like Callimachi can be seriously described as a “fine reporter” is a damning reflection of the extreme low to which journalistic standards have sunk.

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How will Brexit affect digital privacy in the UK?

Brexit has been one big chaotic mess, but there are some beneficiaries of the madness. Facebook is one of them. It was reported yesterday that the tech corporation—which is currently getting hammered from all directions by major lawsuits—is going to move all of its UK users into agreements with its corporate headquarters in California.

Previously, users in Britain were set up with the company’s Euro headquarters in Ireland, which meant they were under the purview of the European Union and its robust privacy laws. As Ireland is still a member of the EU, many of the legal agreements it had with the UK are changing or ending altogether, and Facebook is taking advantage of that. (So is Google, for that matter. I haven’t used Google in ages. There are plenty of alternatives. For instance, when I’m looking for an NDIS provider finder, I use DuckDuckGo.)

In a statement to Reuters, Facebook’s UK branch confirmed that it was shifting British users to the California framework, but insisted rather unconvincingly that user privacy would not be affected.

“Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for UK users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook Inc,” Facebook said. “There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK.”

Users in the UK will still be governed by that country’s privacy regime, which is similar to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But “people familiar with the company” told Reuters that Facebook is motivated by a desire to get out from under the GDPR’s restrictions. Among other things, the GDPR places limitations on how much data can be shared between Europe and the US.

The concern now is that London, in order to secure an attractive trade deal with Washington, will relax its own privacy laws to enable a freer exchange of information, opening up users to all manner of violations. Jim Killock, executive director of the UK-based Open Rights Group, remarked upon the danger inherent in such a development. “The bigger the company,” he explained, “the more personal data they hold, the more they are likely to be subject to surveillance duties or requirements to hand over data to the US government.”

The shift goes into effect next year; shortly after, Facebook will notify users via an update to its terms of service.

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Australia sues Facebook for spying on users sans consent

Facebook has been sued by a regulatory body in Australia for allegedly (but we all know it’s true) gathering personal data from users without their knowledge or consent. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says Zuckerberg’s corporation used the Onavo Protect VPN app to spy on Australian users in 2016 and 2017, collecting and storing their data in order to boost Facebook’s profits. Facebook did this, the filing asserts, while telling users that the app would protect their data and keep it safe.

That is what a VPN (virtual private network) is meant to do: keep your data secure and prevent you from being monitored by nefarious actors like Facebook. But you really can’t trust any digital technology these days, especially if it’s being promoted by Facebook. If you want privacy you’d better just stick to face-to-face conversations, or maybe 2 way radios.

“Through Onavo Protect, Facebook was collecting and using the very detailed and valuable personal activity data of thousands of Australian consumers for its own commercial purposes, which we believe is completely contrary to the promise of protection, secrecy and privacy that was central to Facebook’s promotion of this app,” said a statement from ACCC chair Rod Sims.

He added:

“Consumers often use VPN services because they care about their online privacy, and that is what this Facebook product claimed to offer. In fact, Onavo Protect channelled significant volumes of their personal activity data straight back to Facebook.

“We believe that the conduct deprived Australian consumers of the opportunity to make an informed choice about the collection and use of their personal activity data by Facebook and Onavo.”

The ACCC is seeking pecuniary penalties, though it did not specify how much.

Whether Facebook did what the ACCC accuses it of doing isn’t really up for debate. In 2018 the British parliament published internal Facebook documents that detailed how the company used data from the Onavo app to gather valuable information about user activity—as well as valuable information about competitors. For example, the app allowed Facebook to identify WhatsApp as a competitive threat, at which point Facebook moved to take it over. Classic predatory monopolistic behavior, and a clear violation of US antitrust legislation.

Where’s Ted Roosevelt when you need him?

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Facebook doesn’t like that Apple is going to inform its users that they’re being spied on by Facebook

Few things are more tiresome than a squabble between miscreant corporations, especially when they’re as scummy as Facebook and Apple. But here we are. Facebook—the surveillance/data-stealing monopoly—is lashing out at Apple for changing its operating system in a way that Facebook says will make it harder for businesses to assault users with targeted advertisements.

In a blog post, Facebook asserts that Apple’s new transparency policy is “about profit, not privacy.” As though Facebook isn’t motivated exclusively and pathologically by profit. Facebook accusing another predatory corporation of greed is like the US government condemning one of its enemies for war crimes. It’s just hypocrisy of the worst sort. All this garbage does make me tired; if only I had an electric adjustable bed to tumble into right now.

“Facebook is speaking up for small businesses,” writes Dan Levy, VP of Ads and Business Products, and Apple is “hurting small businesses and publishers who are already struggling in a pandemic.” Pretty rich coming from the company that, according to a lawsuit filed recently by the federal government, is actually a predatory trust that systematically crushes or takes over any business that it fears might eventually become a competitor and threaten its absolute domination of the social media and digital advertising markets. That company cares about small businesses. Sure.

What Apple will do is this: Whenever an iPhone user opens an app, the system will alert them to the fact that their data is being tracked for advertising purposes. The user can then opt out of the surveillance program if they wish.

That’s what has Facebook all steamed up right now. The company is so vexed that it took out full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The ad reads in part: “Without personalised ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend.”

“Facebook data,” eh? I’m sure that’s completely reliable. Definitely not skewed to Facebook’s advantage. My personal internal data shows that Facebook is full of shit. I trust that yours shows the same.

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List of Facebook and Twitter execs that donated to Biden’s campaign

The big tech monopolies have come under a lot of scrutiny lately, and it’s about time. Facebook is now the subject of anti-trust lawsuits filed by the government of the United States as well as the attorneys general of 47 US states. The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and Google (check out Google adwords agency) have all been grilled by the US Congress in recent months. During these congressional hearings, Democrats mostly concentrate on anti-trust violations while Republicans complain about censorship of conservative voices.

While Republican rhetoric is almost 100 percent nonsense, it’s abundantly clear that Facebook and Twitter do in fact have a cultural and political bias that favors shallow mainstream liberalism. The kind of liberalism conveyed by Joe Biden, for example. Indeed, Fox News reports that top executives at both Facebook and Twitter donated many a dollar to Biden’s presidential campaign. Moreover, none donated to Trump’s fascist reelection campaign.

Using Federal Election Commission records, Fox discovered that Erin Egan (Facebook vice president of public policy) donated the maximum $2,800 to Biden in October. She also donated the same amount to Biden’s uninspiring primary campaign.

Also donating the maximum allowable amount to Biden during the primary was Facebook’s chief revenue officer David Fischer, who went on to give a niggardly $750 to Biden during the general election.

David Wehner, Facebook’s chief financial officer, also pumped the maximum $2,800 into the Biden campaign. As did four of Facebook’s vice presidents—Gene Alston, Michael Verdu, Shahriar Rabii and T.S. Khurana—and the chief operating officer of Instagram (owned by Facebook), Marne Levine.

It was pretty much the same story at Twitter, which, you may recall, drew the ire of Republicans shortly before the election by flat-out censoring a New York Post story alleging financial and political improprieties on the part of Joe Biden’s ne’er-do-well son Hunter (now under investigation for tax fraud). Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey—who now sports a Russian peasant beard—later testified to the US Congress that it was a mistake to censor the article. But the damage had been done.

Anyhow, Twitter VP Matt Derella gave Biden’s campaign $2,000 in September, while senior director Ryan Oliver and senior director of product management James Kelm (not execs) donated the full monty. Kelm donated $2,800 to Biden’s primary campaign as well.

Facebook didn’t respond to a request for comment, while Twitter said it “enforces the Twitter rules judiciously and impartially for everyone on our service.” A demonstrable absurdity contradicted by their prolific censorship.